To the editor: Bogus ad


I wanted to let you know that the following ad appeared in The News & Observer and was on Triangle.com all last week. It is an attempt to scam people…

The ad read:

“MOVIE THEATRE- RALEIGH, 18 screen. All Digital. No recession here. Be your own Boss and make $475,000. As new owner you’ll make no payments til you net $125,000. Small deposit of $7500. Qualified parties only please. (703-XXX-XXXX)” (phone number omitted)

Anyone not familiar with the movie industry (including owning a movie theatre), could be mislead by this ad. My projectionist (Craig Askew) called it to my attention. We knew it was a fraud and decided to do some checking on the ad…. first the guy will not talk to anyone without first getting the $7500 cash UP FRONT… that is your first clue that it is a scam. Craig did get him to talk about his proposal that he advertised in the N&O…. the information we got from the man was turned over to the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) which issued a Nationwide alert to all theatre owners and regional representatives … and we are sure that this matter will be handled by the law enforcement agencies shortly…. but since we discovered it and what he was trying to do, we wanted to let the public know …don’t believe everything you read saying you will make a lot of money with little investment and be weary of any deal that requires cash up front…. in this particular case, we would hate to see any citizen loose money thinking they are going to get into the movie business…

Jim Kopp
Raleigh Road Outdoor Theatre